Today seemed like a normal day, but it turned out to be a day which I will remember for a long time. Yes, even though I'm fifty going on sixty...


The following is somewhat like a detective story. There will be a key at the end of my long personal recount.

A few days ago, Joycelyn, Chor Kwan, Jie Ying and I arranged to meet at my house to practice for O level practical, as usual. It turned out somewhat as planned. This morning, I woke up, did the usual stuff like violin practice, revision and walking around the house aimlessly. Then at around 11am, my parents asked me if I wanted to eat lunch outside. I didn't want to because I thought I wouldn't be able to come back in time to open the door at 2pm. My parents were like, "oh, ok then, we will buy lunch back for you and Jean. I don't think Jean wants to go out.." So my mom dropped off lunch at home. Meanwhile, I was keeping myself in my room.

I will skip the whole 12pm-1.30pm process.

At around 1.30pm, the doorbell finally rang. Jie Ying and Joycelyn trooped in together and settled down in the living room. I failed to notice anything unusual. I let them practice their duet together first since Chor Kwan wasn't here yet (she is the cellist for the piano trio). I sat down in the entertainment area beside the piano and listened to them. Then halfway, they started playing very loudly. Then the rest of the piece was disrupted by talking and laughing. And I didn't notice anything wrong. They finally finished off the piece and I was asked to go dig out my violin. I went to my room, took my time tuning it and went out.


At around 2pm, Chor Kwan told Joycelyn she reached and Joycelyn offered to go down and get her through the side gate. The only unusual thing I noticed was that Jean was talking a lot to Jie Ying and Joycelyn, and she even offered Joycelyn her side gate card. So I "jammed" with Jie Ying while Joycelyn took a very long time to come back. We played old favourites - Legende and Czardas. Jie Ying on the piano and me on the violin.


After about 20 mins, my out of tune door bell (jie ying thinks it is ageing like me) finally rang again. I was surprised when I saw Joycelyn, Chor Kwan and Elprada (Elfreda - immitation Prada) standing outside. It looked very crowded because there were 2 gigantic cellos too. Then I saw that Elprada was holding a cake. It looked quite intimating at first because it was very white and shaped like a nice cuboid with whipped cream on the top. The whipped cream was melting off in the heat. The cake finally made its way to the dining table and I couldn't help but laugh for a very long time. Jean and the rest began their invasion of the kitchen. They passed me a watermelon knife (The very gigantic one. Thankfully, my house didn't have durian knives) to cut the cake. And then I was told they baked the cake for 3 hours. My heart immediately went to the cake. It looked a bit weird, tissue box-like, but since it was homemade, maybe that was why it didn't look so commercialised. I couldn't wait to try their baking skills. So when my gigantic knife plunged onto (not into) the cake, I realised it was quite hard. I thought that maybe it was overcooked and decided to try again. But then it didn't get any easier. I was thinking the whole thing was a biscuit-like pastry covered with whipped cream. Finally, there was a breakthrough. My knife managed to sink in, but it plunged down very fast. The cake was hollow. I thought it was really a tissue box. But after some of the whip cream melted off, I realised that it was actually a Styrofoam box. This is one way we can recycle Styrofoam. I had to attack the rest of the cake by pulling it apart with my bare hands. It was quite gross with all the melted whipped cream running down the sides of box. When I finally destroyed it, there was the paper pig that popped out of another Styrofoam box. Under it was some sweets. Hahaha.. It was a really genius idea.

Then we cleaned up the whip cream mess. It was all over the table. My mom doesn't know about this yet. She couldn't even tell something like that happened when she came home later. Jie Ying, Joycelyn, Chor Kwan, Joycelyn and Elprada are really professional table cleaners. They even had a proper technique for removing the aftermath. I was quite impressed. Jean is the professional dish washer. I just discovered her hidden talent. Maybe I can give her more opportunities at home...


Then I was presented with another cake. This time it didn't look so ghostly. It looked like a normal brown cake with toppings etc. But at that time, I was already scared it would be another fake cake. Jean and Jie Ying brought out the cake from the kitchen and it had 16 candles on it. It looked like there were fireworks going on because sparks were flying across the cake. I was laughing very hard at the amazing sight of the cake. They put it on the dining table and prompted me to make a wish and start blowing out the candles. The first part was somewhat completed. But extinguishing the candles just took a very long time. I was laughing and blowing at the same time, which made it really difficult. After about 3 minutes of blowing, there were 6 down, 10 more to go. I kept blowing but somehow it just got harder and harder. PAUSE: What did the green grape say to the red grape? Ans: Breathe. After I blew, some went out, then I blew again, and it looked almost the same. The house was getting smokey and I was worried the smoke detector would go off. There was some sort of forest fire on the dining table. After a long time, the smoke was starting to go out of the window and anyone who saw might have nearly called the fire brigade. So Joycelyn kindly told me that there were 6 normal candles and 10 self-relighting candles. Gah.. made me blow at it for so long. The cake was a bit melted after the heating.


We killed the relighting candles by drowning them in water. At first when Jean brought out the big container of water, I thought she was going to pour it on the cake (because I thought it was fake). Then we cleaned up the table, again with the expertise of the music people (jean included). Haha.. These people are talented in music, and also in doing house chores, really.

Then Jean went back to getting stuck at the computer. She had her cake on her own. The rest of us sat around the living room. Then they gave me this gigantic GAP bag that I don't think I saw earlier. In it was a card which had AH LYNN at the front, creatively designed by putting pictures of me to form each letter. The pictures occurred to me first. Then after a while, I realised it was AH LYNN. Nearly jumped out of my seat. The big box inside was really fascinating. Oh, it did not come from GAP. It was a physics kit. With a lot of cool things to prove physics theories and even a wind power generator thing. I need to find a way to build a fan for Evangeline and myself because we melt at the back of the class.


Then after that, we played a bit of music/noise then ended the practice. Haha.. It was less of a practice today but I definitely enjoyed it. And this ends my true story.


The key. Sorry, I didn't know what else to call this section. Anyway, I learnt from Jean's blog that they had been planning these few hours for quite some time. Jie Ying later told me they started before SYF. I really appreciate it. This is what I managed to figure out today, after the surprise. Jean was supposed to kick me out of the house for lunch so that she could stay home and meet Jie Ying to pick up the big GAP bag. But my mom didn't manage to get me out for lunch, so they changed plan. When my mom told me, she was complimenting about how she and the rest were so adaptable, have many plans. My mom picked up the present from Jie Ying on her way out to buy Jean and I lunch. Then she smuggled the GAP bag into the house (I still can't believe I didn't even manage to spot it while walking around the house) while dropping off lunch before going out with dad.


Joycelyn and Jie Ying met up at Junction 8 and sneaked the cake into the house when they arrived. They left it on the living room floor when they settled down and I didn't even notice. Then when I asked them to practice, they played and discussed about how to refrigerate the cake, at the same time. And that's why they ended up laughing and disturbing Mozart's music. They were talking about the cake right in front of me and I realised I was deaf enough to not even know. Then Jie Ying asked me to get out my violin. I went into the room and then they quickly discussed with Jean. They tried calling/smsing her on the phone but she was stuck to an earpiece and couldn't hear. So the cake managed to get into the fridge before I cameout of the room. Then Chor Kwan and Elprada reached. Joycelyn insisted on going down to meet them. They decorated the fake cake with whipped cream, supported with cotton wool to give some fluffy effect before coming in. While I was tackling the fake cake, Jean and Jie Ying were busy doing up the real cake with relighting candles etc. Joycelyn kept diverting my attention with a roll of paper towels whenever I tried to enter the kitchen to wash my hands from the whipped cream.


Now you can re-read the long personal recount with a better understanding, and see if you managed to figure out what was going on.


After learning about all this, I realised that I am quite deaf + blur. Jean gave me some hint last week - she said I might get a shock on Saturday, but I didn't really take notice of it because Joycelyn hadn't planned today's practice with me yet and when I asked Jean why, she said her friends were coming over. I also learnt that the whole Chan family was involved in this too. Thanks dad, mom, Jean, Joycelyn, Chor Kwan, Jie Ying and Elfreda. I'm sure most of them read this (some secretly). Though it's still 2 days to the actual day, this was definitely a surprising and memorable birthday celebration.


Pictures will be copied over from facebook to the next post.